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schmidty-au writes "NBN Co, the Australian Government company established to build Australia's national fibre-optic broadband network, announced today that, instead of the previously announced 100 Mbps network, it will provide 1 Gbps, within the existing AU$43 billion budget. Meanwhile, the Australian opposition, which has announced that it will scrap the network if it wins the 21 August election, and instead provide incentives to the private sector to improve the existing copper network, and to install wireless broadband (with promised peak speeds of 12 Mbps), does not understand or believe that this would be possible. The man who wants to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said today 'This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible.'"

The man who wants to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said today 'This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible.'"
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke

This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get an improved economy, less waste and an excellent immigration policy from someone we haven't elected yet I find utterly implausible [theage.com.au].

We gave Telstra a decade and all they did was stall adsl2, milk the international interconnects, keep exchanges difficult to access, charge use up and down by the mb and muddy any NBN press.
The idea that "private enterprise" will save us is cute but reality shows they kept the rust belt warm, rolling out the min of new tech for the max price.Tony is offering Australia more of the worst of a US Bell system.Julia is offering a faster internal network with faith based filtering, and Bell international interconnect pricing."multiple businesses" will never get a look in on any Telstra property other than increasing long term rental deals, something that has kept Australian in a digital dark ages for years.
That is what made the NBN (without faith based filtering) such a good idea, making a Bell just another big telco.

I was about to write a lengthy reply to deetoy's inaccuracies, but you saved me the effort!

One thing to add.. "Tony is offering us a free market choice".. no, Tony is offering $6b to go to "private sector" which basically means Telstra, a combined wholesaler and retailer. The NBN is a government owned wholesale-only business who already has 4 retailers signed up - all of whom are offering FTTH plans at faster speeds and similar price to ADSL2 plans.

We do have the technology, but it involves a lot of fiber between a lot of microcells (or APs or whatever you want to call them.) The approach is as always a hybrid one. We stopped using microwave and went to fiber because transmitting that much data long-haul with RF is a PITA and fiber is [relatively] cheap... but you're never going to want to walk around trailing miles of fiber from your cellphone.

Committing to covering a geographical region with a single kind of access only makes sense if that space is

The other advantage of a State monopoly is that it will provide services in areas that may not necessarily be profitable for a private company. That's important for infrastructure where you need universality of coverage to have an equitable society.

From the second linked artical [theage.com.au]"It's very hard to take seriously a government which suddenly pulls yet another technological rabbit out of a hat just because it's under enormous pressure in the closing stages of an election campaign," the Liberal leader told reporters in western Sydney.

"This idea that 'hey presto' we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible."

It seems he's only calling the leap from 100Mbps to 1Gbps implausible, rather than the plan to lay the 100Mbps infrastructure. I don't know what the cost differences are between 100Mbps and 1Gbps but I would have thought they'd be negligible compared to the cost of putting any infrastructure in place.

So in terms of just building a big 'ole WAN, no probably not too much more. Enterprise grade gig equipment still carries a non-trivial price premium over 100mb, but it isn't near the cost that actually laying the fiber will be. However remember that's only half the battle. There are two very other important things when you are talking an ISP:

1) Internal pipes. While you can, of course, oversubscribe lines and you'll do that, you cannot do it to an infinite fashion. What this means is if you have a switch fu

And, no, you are quite wrong. The hard part is getting gigabit links to every home. The back end is easy.

If you're running fiber; giving them a 'gigabit' fiber connection by using a gigabit switch rather than a 100mb switch is easy.

The problem on the back end becomes provisioning. If your switch has internal gigabit switching and you have a hundred some odd houses plugged in there, but you only have a gigabit connection going back to a central switch, can you really say that the users have a 'gigabit connection to the internet'? They only get that gig if none of the other hundred or so people are using it at

Again it matters on what you can provide. If all links in the country are gig, then it is just a collection of little LANs. You have gig to the switch which has gig to its switch and that to its switch and so on. Ok, but that means at each level contention gets much, much worse until you are talking very slow speeds to people who aren't extremely local to you. You have to have bigger and bigger upstream connections to maintain that gig speed over a wider area.

What this means is if you have a switch full of people on gig, and you want them to see that gig a reasonable amount of time, you need to go 10gig for the uplink from that switch. Then that switch with all the 10gig ports is going to have to have something bigger up the chain, and currently there isn't anything on the ethernet standard.

A possible solution is to not have "upstream", but use half the ports on a switch connect to people and the other half connect to other switches - in other words, have a mes

How's that work at the next level though? So let's say I have a 48 port switch. I connect 24 ports to people, then 24 ports back to my floor switch. Ok, what does that switch connect to the next switch with? If you said "24 ports" well then the switches aren't doing anything, other than acting as extenders, 24 in, 24 out, we are never connecting more people.

That's the issue is that you have to interconnect these things for it to be any use. Many connections must aggregate at some location so they can trade

While I agree that the price difference between 100 mbit and gigabit (both require a fiber network) is small, there is no way to build a nationwide network for a small US state for that budget. This network is not going to get built, no matter who gets elected. A national fiber network for australia with connections to even 10% of houses... I seriously doubt it could be done with hundred times that budget.

I'm sure that more major network links will be created over time. There's no reason why they shouldn't be.

Your problem is that you feel that everything is hosted overseas. It's not. Not everything runs through the International links, unless you are some sort of stupid corporation that uses an MPLS network to route your traffic - hi EMC network admins! There are vast numbers of servers and Internet based services within Australia that are required or are extremely useful to Australian organizations. That is

And frankly people who let their votes be decided by "we'll give you more free stuff" deserve exactly what they'll get.

$43e9 AUS is not free. Also, I am not really clear on what's being proposed... the following quotes give me the impression they're upgrading the backbone, and perhaps to the home in major areas, but not taking on the last mile problem for all of Australia:

the faster capability was already built into the equipment which the company was installing in homes and Mr Quigley said he decided to

"This network is not going to get built, no matter who gets elected. A national fiber network for australia with connections to even 10% of houses... I seriously doubt it could be done with hundred times that budget."

So you suggest that it would be unlikely to deploy GPON to about 800,000 households for $AUD 4.3 trillion, or approximately $AUD 5 million per household? You knowm just the opinion of one network engineer who has actually been involved in nationwide GPON deployments, the current assessment of

The bigger magic still will be keeping out the porn and gory zombie games, as the aussie government seems hell-bent on doing. The great firewall of Australia has a better chance of coming about if they dig a big moat filled with burning gasoline, if you ask me!

The man who wants to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said today 'This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible.'"

If Abbott gets in NORTH Korea will have 10 gig fibre to the home before we get 10Mb.Remember he's the guy that recently said we should trust him because we caught him out in a lie, so by some twisted logic the other side must be better liars and untrustworthy. He's still very much the same man he was before and we should judge him on the mess he made of health care with the STUPID policy of reducing doctor training numbers and taking up the slack with doctors from the third world. His actions there are a

If he was interested in truth he wouldn't have said "it was her back your honour" in court. Maybe that's the Sir Mixalot defence (Baby got back), but he's a seriously slimy character as you would realise if you considered his career. You don't get a nickname from Rasputin (Mad Monk) or called an attack dog by being a good boy.You may not have noticed, but at times people are asked to resign instead of being taken out the door by armed gaurds. In both cases they are no longer wanted even if in the former

Plus, by the time it gets rolled out, South Korea will have 10 gig fibre to the home. So, gigabit isn't that unrealistic.

Indeed. Since the idea of the NBN is fibre to the home, I always thought 100meg would most likely be an artificial limit anyway. This "announcement" is simply going to make available more of the capability the network would likely have had in the first place.

The problem I have is that I don't know which side to trust. It's another case of the wrong lizard; it feels like it's just a matter of how comfy the handbasket is, and how well entertained we will be during the ride.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that the only sensible option for this election is to vote "None of the above". Whilst I have to vote, I refuse to consider the notion that I may not take the option of voting "None of the above".

Actually... he graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Economics (BEc) and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and graduated as an Oxford Rhodes Scholar with a Master of Arts (MA) in Politics and Philosophy.

I don't like him, and I don't feel he'd be great for the economy - certainly I won't be voting for him! - but you can't say he doesn't have a background in Economics. Now if he would actually use that background, that would be great, but he's too busy running cynical political lines like "we'll stop the

The man who wants to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said today 'This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible.'"

Yeah, and computers will never get faster, cheaper or smaller. What a tool.

Yeah, and computers will never get faster, cheaper or smaller. What a tool.

Consider that the average consumer doesn't actually see the progression of computer speed and he may look slightly less tool like.

If all you do is use word, browse the web, check email etc, your computer has likely stayed the same effective speed for the past 15 years... The progression of things getting prettier/more complex/more intelligent is so gentle that most people don't ever notice.

All you have to do is grab a game which came out 15 years ago - lets say Doom 2 (which came out 17 years ago), and a game which came out lately - take your pick and compare the graphics. Or compare the (non-existant) physics with the physics of some modern FPS.

Even if you ARE an 'average' consumer who just browses the web (those people exist?) - I'm pretty sure that even flash games have greatly improved.

All you have to do is grab a game which came out 15 years ago - lets say Doom 2 (which came out 17 years ago), and a game which came out lately - take your pick and compare the graphics. Or compare the (non-existant) physics with the physics of some modern FPS.

The problem being that the average consumer sees that as "oh, it got a bit prettier" – they don't realise how many orders of magnitude more processing it requires to make it that much prettier.

There's no point in you voting. Your vote won't change anything. Voting is not the way of having an effect in a democratic system.

And now the bad analogy: To found a new religion you start by convincing other people a new god exists, not by convincing yourself and praying to it.

Do you still hold that view if the voting machines aren't rigged? I live in the US and have been voting third party. I know I can't single-handedly change the outcome of the election. But if enough people voted third party it could actually change things. If the voting machines aren't rigged, which they are.

The man who wants to be Australia's next Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, said today 'This idea that "hey presto" we are suddenly going to get 10 times the speed from something that isn't even built yet I find utterly implausible.'"

Yeah, and computers will never get faster, cheaper or smaller. What a tool.

It's a particularly stupid statement since the technology selected for the NBN was designed to scale to 1Gbps with only a simple upgrade. Fibre is insanely high-bandwidth, the limitation is mostly around the cost of the transponders and the core network routers, which have to handle huge aggregate speeds. Speeds of 100Mbps are doable now, many Asian countries have already deployed networks that fast, so given the equivalent of Moore's law for networking, I'm not surprised they've changed their targeted initial speed to 1Gbps.

Through a combination of advances in dispersion management, wavelength-division multiplexing, and optical amplifiers, modern-day optical fibers can carry information at around 14 Terabits per second over 160 kilometers of fiber [4]. Engineers are always looking at current limitations in order to improve fiber-optic communication, and several of these restrictions are currently being researched

14 terabits over 160km? does tony abbot's advisors do any research? presently, we have a copper network that can manage at best 24mbit at a max distance of 4km, at best. the NBN is an *optical* network, and is likely to be dispersed at network segments of less than 100km per run. lol. do i really need to point out the stupidity of saying it can't be gigabit? do i also need to point out the stupidity of saying a 100mbit network is not gonna be a piece of cake to roll out with optical in australian metro areas? what a retard.

anyway, i'm voting for the sex party. you can bet they are all on for the NBN. super HD pr0n here we come:)

Reorganise your spectrum so that you can deliver a gigabit per second over cellular protocols. Roll displaced services into cellular data. By all means pull fibre into the street, but then deploy microcells in high demand areas. The last step is always wireless anyway. In the future people won't install their own wifi if they can get a good service from a telco.

Before NBN Telstra Smart Communities: as I live in one, I can tell you that the insanity feeels soooo goooood (phone, public TV and Internet on a single cable). I can't wait the NBN roll-out, though, will sure drive Telstra to lower the prices.

The last step is always wireless anyway

No, not in my case. Home with structural cabling - data socket in each room. Yes, I do have a WiFi router, but only my laptop connects to it (rationale: when it comes to transfer files in my LAN, 1Gbps over CAT6 sure beats 50-120 Mbps - at peak - over WiFi).

A cellular base station can be as small as the router hanging from the optus cable outside my house. There are plenty attached to traffic signal poles in the Melbourne CBD. Big, long range base stations are definitely on the way out in the city.

That would be Shanon's law. What it basically says is that the total amount of digital data you can get down a given channel is related to the bandwidth, in Hz of the channel, and the signal to noise ratio of that channel.

Now in the wireless world, the SNR is something you have to count on being pretty low. There's interference of plenty of kinds, including just general thermal noise, which goes up as frequency does. Plus unless you want to expend tons of power blasting it out, ther

The things is, I don't think there will be many stationary devices in the home and office environment of the future. The intelligent dishwasher which Abbot was talking about won't have a phone or data cable going to it. It will have a cheap cellular modem. Yeah, spectrum is finite, but we make such poor use of it now, and the wireless step only has to go from the street to inside the building.

In the future I think many small businesses will use telco data services. They won't install their own networking ge

The things is, I don't think there will be many stationary devices in the home and office environment of the future.

In the future I think many small businesses will use telco data services. They won't install their own networking gear.

Think again. I don't pretend to be representative, but I'm operating 6 computers at home.

The intelligent dishwasher which Abbot was talking about won't have a phone or data cable going to it. It will have a cheap cellular modem. Yeah, spectrum is finite, but we make such poor use of it now, and the wireless step only has to go from the street to inside the building.

It will be like sending a fax using telco's terminal (but installed in your home)?

The pervasive wireless networking you are suggesting is an attractive goal, but the fiber to the neighborhood wireless is not scalable in the longer term. In order to continue to scale bandwidth, UWB wireless will need to be very high-density, low-power, and short range.

At some point, you will need the full fiber rollout anyway, so it is best to do it right in the first place. Even in the unlikely event that a full spectrum reallocation is achievable, there is no way that it will be cheaper, and would inv

Tony Abbott apparently doesn't understand a thing about modern networking. Today's optic fibers can support frightening data rates, the limiting factor currenly is what the hardware on both sides is capable of. With the speeds of the high end of the market recently increasing to 40G and 100G (from 1G and 10G) per channel I would not be surprised if that jump suddenly made 1G FTTH possible. Investing in copper technology now is outrageous and a waste of money. Utilizing it for the last mile while you're not

Tony Abbott apparently doesn't understand a thing about modern networking

ahh, if it were only modern networking mr. Abbott didnt understand - the reality is that he, like his hero predecessor mr. Howard, and his predecessor's hero mr. Menzies, simply dont understand a world past about 1955.

Why is Slashdot so pro Sex Party and not greens? They have around 15% of the primary vote, compared to the 1% or so of the Sex Party, and have very similar, left leaning policies.
http://greens.org.au/policies [greens.org.au]

please - consider that the internet filter shenanigans has been an elaborate charade to woo that nufty 'family first' senator steven fielding, and as soon as he's gone, labor can drop the charade entirely.

in that regard, if you must vote below the line, reserve the last couple o spots for family first.

( oh, and given there are 60 candidates for the senate in victoria, a 61 for anyone will render your vote null and void...)

please - consider that the internet filter shenanigans has been an elaborate charade to woo that nufty 'family first' senator steven fielding, and as soon as he's gone, labor can drop the charade entirely.

in that regard, if you must vote below the line, reserve the last couple o spots for family first.

( oh, and given there are 60 candidates for the senate in victoria, a 61 for anyone will render your vote null and void...)

Believe me, Family First are going down too. I downloaded the CSV file for the senate in victoria and counted lines. Maybe I got it wrong. I will check. Thanks.

I agree, I have been saying that the whole thing is a "Yes Minister" episode since the first Conroy story appeared on slashdot. However I don't think Liberal and Labor will stop playing the game (that started with Howard in the late 90's) and if the libs get in then you will see them swap roles (again). It's simply a ruse by the two majors to keep nutjob independents chasing their own tail, neither party are serious about mandatory filters even though BOTH SIDES have put forward legislation advocating it, B

Tony abbots so-called "broadband plan" does NOTHING to address the market dominance of Telstra in so many areas of this country or the fact that so many areas of the country cant get ADSL at all because Telstra would rather push NextG than install more ADSL hardware (mostly because it has to allow other ISPs to provide service over the ADSL hardware but not over NextG wireless)

In the Senate, you can choose where the preferences go. Just vote below the line. There'd be no guessing then!

If you don't vote below the line, then you will basically find that the major parties watch huge swings in preferences to them, and start getting worried. If the Greens win seats for a number of Senators, then they'll have to deal with them though. I'd say take the risk: it's worth it, as the "risk" is low.

Not to mention that it's not going to be seriously a factorial to work this out. If you can work out who you want to vote for in the top 15-20 spots, and the ones you dislike the most (c'mon, I'm sure that the Communist Party, or the Christian Democratic Party must be at the bottom of a lot of people's list!) you put at right down the bottom, the rest you can just number in any way you like.

And if you can work out the top 15-20, then that's not even 20!, because you'll probably know what order to put it in.

$43bn for speeds faster than what the internet naturally provides... There isn't a need for gigabit connections when the average pipeline of a website is less than a megabit. I suppose if you want to watch 75 HD porn videos at a time, now you'd get the chance

You're right, instead of spending $43bn on gigabit network now, we should spend $30bn on 1Mb now, then $30bn in 3 years on 5Mb, then $30bn in 6 years on 10Mb, then $30bn in 10 years on 100Mb, then...

The problem is the $43B when its not an urgent expense now and will still not make that much of a difference to real speeds.
70% of internet traffic in australia comes from overseas through what is essentially small pipes. Additionally the pace of technology change is such that wireless is a more desirable solution for consumers already. And from someone who has watched technology for at least 30 years, Get your upgrade when you absolutely need it as technology only gets Cheaper, Faster, Better.

$43bn for speeds faster than what the internet naturally provides... There isn't a need for gigabit connections when the average pipeline of a website is less than a megabit. I suppose if you want to watch 75 HD porn videos at a time, now you'd get the chance

Considering we've gone from, what, 14.4k to approaching Gb speeds in the space of less than 20 years? I don't think it's unreasonable to build in some future redundancy - after all, the majority of the cost is going to be physically putting the cable in place, the cost to increase the capacity of said cable is likely to be close to incidental.

The filter has come up in different forms over the last three elections from both major parties but we don't have it yet. Call me cynical but I think it was part of catching the "think of the children" vote. Now pressure groups have worked out it won't catch child molesters so it's no longer a viable policy to catch that vote. I think the proposal will vanish completely when Conroy gets another job and wacko Senators that like the idea of a filter no longer hold the balance of power.